ARTICLES ABOUT SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY BY DATE - PAGE 4

NEW DELHI: Private life insurer Reliance Life Insurance today tied up with global NGO 'Room to Read' to set up libraries across schools in India. The partnership between Reliance Life and Room to Read aims to set up over 100 libraries in government primary schools and reach out to over 10,000 children across the country through this initiative, the company said in a statement.. "Through this partnership we will promote literacy and gender equality in the country by providing libraries in schools," Reliance Life Insurance CEO Anup Rau said.

MUMBAI: With corporate social responsibility (CSR) becoming a legal mandate, a study has found that a large majority (81 per cent) of domestic companies identify education as the top core area for their sustainability activities. Three out of four domestic companies already have a core CSR team in place or plan to have one in the next couple of years, while 58 per cent of them have an annual centralised budget for sustainability activities, says a survey conducted by Mercer, a global consulting leader in talent, health, retirement and investments.

Hyderabad: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today stressed the need for making police stations as "temples of justice" as he advised police personnel to develop a sense of social responsibility to serve the public. "I hold the police station to be a temple of justice . This ideal will, however, materialise only when a helpless, harassed and suffering victim of injustice or crime can visit a police station without hesitation, and the police official present there listens to his suffering, and understands and empathise and also gets down to the task of prompt redress," Singh said.

Dubai: The ICC has tied up with McGrath Foundation, Cancer Society of New Zealand, Room to Read and Think Wise for its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) partnerships during the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The ICC will once again be working with Room to Read and will also partner with UNAIDS and UNICEF to deliver the global cricket AIDS awareness partnership THINK WISE. The organisations will be joined for this tournament by the McGrath Foundation and Cancer Society of New Zealand who are committed to providing the best form of care and support to those affected by cancer in both countries.

NEW DELHI: Coming out with revised guidelines, the government has made it mandatory for all profit-making central public sector companies to spend money on CSR activities. Besides, these enterprises cannot include money spent on sustainable development efforts under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) ambit. The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) has come out with the revised guidelines following the new Companies Act making social welfare spending compulsory for certain class of profitable corporates mandatory.

It's going to be a busy month for Mamtha Sharma, country head for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), IBM India. As we write this, a contingent of nine IBM-ers from nine different countries is descending on Barmer, Rajasthan, for an agri-development project that aims to increase the yields of pomegranate and other fruits that grow in this arid, oil-rich district. The team is a part of IBM's Corporate Service Corps (CSC) initiative, which sends middle management executives to the far corners of the world to lend their skills to social development programs.

NEW DELHI: Industry associations today lent their support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat mission by urging companies to build toilets and usher in cleanliness throughout the country. The Prime Minister today wielded a broom here to launch his pet Swachh Bharat mission, a cleanliness drive across India, on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. Industry body Assocham asked its member companies to join the Swachh Bharat initiative. It will hold a series of programmes to involve profit making firms to spend on building and maintenance of toilets under their mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

NEW DELHI: Government has set up a Swachh Bharat Kosh to attract funds from corporates and individuals to improve sanitation facilities, particularly in schools. "Swachh Bharat Kosh (SBK) has been set up to attract Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds from corporate sector and contributions from individuals and philanthropists," an official statement said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi today launched the country's biggest-ever cleanliness drive Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan that is expected to cost over Rs 62,000 crore.

The government should abandon plans to penalise companies that do not spend money on corporate social responsibility (CSR). The new Companies Act mandates companies of a certain size to either spend money on CSR or explain why they do not. The law makes it clear that the board of directors will provide the reasons for not spending the money. However, there is aview within the government that penalties should be imposed on companies that fail to spend for two or more years, ostensibly not to leave any grey areas in law. The new-found wisdom, on a law debated for years, makes no sense.

By Rajat Arora The Narendra Modi-led government will not let companies get away easily if they do not spend the mandated 2% of their profits on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities as specified by law. The government is planning to add more teeth to the Companies Act 2013 by introducing the penalty clause for companies that miss this target spending repeatedly. At present, non-compliance of CSR rule isn't penalized by the Companies Law, and those unable to spend the stipulated amount can get away with some justification.